diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index b436812535bb78223f9e70c9644c4b26ebc83521..3bce16b7bfce60c27d5140dabe8f4ce8784451f9 100644
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 python-defaults (2.7.6-1) UNRELEASED; urgency=medium
 
   * Bump version to 2.7.6.
+  * Use UTF-8 encoding for the python policy in HTML format. Closes: #689931.
 
  -- Matthias Klose <doko@debian.org>  Wed, 07 May 2014 14:40:27 +0200
 
diff --git a/debian/rules b/debian/rules
index 87411d87c5059944d0f18c60228501692c04a38e..0bdc468b12e7383080706b69632821abd2888c59 100755
--- a/debian/rules
+++ b/debian/rules
@@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ stamp-build:
 stamp-doc-policy:
 	debiandoc2text debian/python-policy.sgml
 	mv -f python-policy.txt debian/
-	debiandoc2html debian/python-policy.sgml
+	debiandoc2html -l en.UTF-8 debian/python-policy.sgml
 	rm -rf debian/python-policy.html
 	mv -f python-policy.html debian/
 	make -C pydist README.PyDist.html